FEATURED ARTICLES ABOUT NATIONAL ENQUIRER - PAGE 5

The parent company of the National Enquirer has selected Iain Calder as chairman and president, succeeding the Lantana-based newspaper`s late founder, Generoso Pope Jr., who died of a heart attack on Oct. 2. Also promoted in the wake of Pope`s death was David H. Galpern, formerly chief financial officer and senior vice president of GP Group and now executive vice president. The promotions were announced by the company`s board of directors. Pope`s family controls GP Group, according to a company spokesman.

Among former Sen. John Edwards' other sins against humanity, add this one: He helped the National Enquirer gain more credibility than any supermarket tabloid deserves. The blogosphere is abuzz with critics of the "MSM" - the mainstream media - for allegedly failing to pursue the story of the former senator's "love child" when the National Enquirer first reported it last year. In fact, major media did pursue the story. Unlike the Enquirer's last big baby gotcha - its revelation of the Rev. Jesse Jackson's out-of-wedlock child in 2000 - none of the principle parties in the Edwards story would go on the record to confirm it. At first, Edward's flatly denied the story.

Long before Farrah Fawcett's medical records detailing her cancer landed in the National Enquirer and celebrity Web sites reported in February that Patrick Swayze had a month to live, the tabloids displayed a special interest in the health and medical treatment of celebrities. For decades, the tabloids have made a cottage industry of star ailments - whether Dean Martin's declining health, Rock Hudson's AIDS diagnosis or Bob Hope's final years in and out of hospitals. "Bob Hope Says Last Goodbye," and "Gone Blind, Deaf - & needs your prayers," the Star reported months before the entertainer actually died.

Most people have some acquaintance with the National Enquirer, if only from story teasers scanned while waiting in supermarket checkout lines. So it's appropriate that the Enquirer's first syndicated TV special is as superficial as a lurid headline. In a single hour, National Enquirer Presents: 25 Years of Scandals rehashes what it considers the 20 most titillating contretemps of the past quarter-century (in the opinion of the tabloid's "blue ribbon panel"). Deduct 15 minutes or so for commercials and another few minutes for unabashed self-congratulation and promotion _ "we cover show business better than the Washington Post does politics" _ and it's obvious that none of the vignettes is going to be deeper than a typical tabloid story.

Brian Hogan, a journalist known for the devilish pranks he played, and then reported in the National Enquirer, died on Sunday at his home in Lake Worth. He was 74 and had been in failing health from a blood infection, according to his friend William Burt. Ian Calder, Mr. Hogan's boss when Calder was executive editor of the Enquirer, said of the drink-loving, diminutive Australian: "There was nothing he wouldn't do to get a fun story." Most famously, during the 1970s political scandal known as "Abscam," Mr. Hogan posed as a sheik from an oil-producing Arab nation and was treated royally in the halls of Congress.

When National Enquirer gossip columnist Mike Walker came to work on Monday, it was hard for him to fathom that "G.P." was dead. "When I walked in at 8 this morning, I could not believe the man was not sitting in his office," said Walker, an Enquirer employee 18 years. "Everything I do as an editor was done with him in mind. He reviewed my work directly." Generoso Pope, 61, the flamboyant and innovative publisher of the Lantana- based national tabloid, and a civic benefactor to local charities, died on Sunday after a heart attack at his mansion in Manalapan.

LANTANA -- In many ways, it had the appearance of an event Generoso Pope Jr. loved to splash across the pages of his National Enquirer. There were limousines stretched bumper-to-bumper, waiting to unload their important passengers. A mob of reporters and photographers scrambled about to get quotes and photos. There were even a couple of show business celebrities on hand. But the atmosphere at Holy Spirit Catholic Church was somber Wednesday morning as friends and family gathered to bury Pope, who died on Sunday after suffering a heart attack in his Manalapan home.

The biological threat of anthrax took American Media Inc. by surprise five years ago, killing an employee at the Boca Raton publisher and raising a national alarm over other attacks in the United States. AMI survived the anthrax attack on its headquarters and continued operating. But events since then have raised questions about how well AMI is surviving the post-anthrax era. Over the last three years, AMI expanded its product portfolio and converted supermarket tabloids like the Star and National Enquirer into celebrity weeklies, in the process moving some employees from Boca Raton to New York City, and back to Boca again.

Capitalizing on a wave of anti-tabloid fury since Princess Diana's death, a local radio station on Thursday had paparazzi "stalk" Globe editor Tony Frost. Investigators hired by Y-100 (WHYI-FM) sifted through garbage outside Frost's Boca Raton home before sunrise. Later, photographers snapped him in his T-shirt and sweat pants, picking up his morning newspaper. Then they followed him to work. Frost, who declined to comment about the incident, persuaded guards at his gated community not to throw out the Y-100 crew.

In an era when Congress worries about megamergers and corporate chieftains testify before congressional subcommittees about the threat of monopolization, one question has yet to rear its head: What happens if one media company starts to corner the market on tabloid gossip? Today, America may find out as the National Enquirer (this week's headline: "Woody Allen's Bizarre Lust for Young Girls") and The Star ("Hunky Prince William is Moving to U.S.: Look Out Girls") are joined in tabloid bliss with The Globe ("Ravaged TV Beauty Beats Booze!"